Bones Supperclub by Lee Skeet, Cardiff

On October 11, 2020 by The Plate Licked Clean

I’ve wanted to try Lee Skeet’s cooking for years now, so this latest opportunity was a must. Bones Supperclub is a private supper club where he cooks for just one reservation per night, in his home. You book online, you discuss any must-haves or won’ts and can’ts and he sends you the address the day before.

With time alongside Gordon Ramsay, Marcus Wareing and Tom Aikens, and with Head Chef at Hedone on his CV, Lee has a remarkable track record. But this isn’t about what he’s done in the past: it’s about how and what he wants to cook now. After a turbulent few years he has found his way back to Cardiff, where he is now settled, and based on what we ate here we are all going to be much the better for it.

The walls carry mementos of his music promotion work and an eclectic playlist accompanies your meal, though you can make requests in advance. This menu is the sound of a chef cooking what he loves best- which means not compromising with vegetarian or vegan menus- but a mission to show off fish and seafood, in particular.

Extras can be arranged in advance and are leapt at: if I ever find myself turning down the chance to start with a dozen Porthilly Oysters then it’ll be a sad day indeed. These are beauties too- briny, bracing jolts of creamy, springy flesh with Tabasco and lemon as we settle in to Lee’s front room. The bookshelf mixes high-end fine dining (11 Madison Park, French Laundry, Noma, Fat Duck) with Harold McGee and Rick Stein but this isn’t going to be some pretentious, look-at-me cooking. It’s about flavour, not flounce.

As we settle in, skewers of fried chicken, hot and light, and little rye crackers of smoked mackerel, cream cheese and chives, delicate yet pronounced flavours, lead into the table courses.

A tartare of Welsh veal and eel is eye-catching in its own right, something which looks like it needs to be handled gently; then comes a hot aromatic consommé which gently poaches the meat for those not keen on raw veal. Quite apart from Eel’n’Veal being a fantastic name for a new surf and turf restaurant, it’s a beguiling way to start with a substantial umami hit.

The flavours in a savoury set custard, heady with dried mushrooms, means it’s time to resurrect that old favourite ‘bosky’. Spindly enoki mushrooms and croutons toasted in chicken fat playing nicely with the delicate textures and fat, savoury, beefy bass notes of custard mean it’s a beautiful dish, something to savour, to recall at your leisure.

It doesn’t let up from there. Not once. Lee is obviously proud of the ingredients he is working with and shows them off before cooking. Cornish mackerel landed from St Ives Bay is shown off in all its iridescent beauty. It comes with the warmth of a seaweed-based mustard dressing, this beautiful tranche of barbecued mackerel, in a rockpool of vividly green cucumber vinegar-tangy sauce and thin slices of tart apple. That’s it. Bright acidity against smoky, fatty meatiness. It’s remarkable.

Next: a burly piece of Cornish hake cut from a 3kg specimen, among (a lovely touch, this) tender little dice of squid, all laced with a velvety cauliflower puree and sweet-tart grapes; a play on the classic French Veronique, all wrapped in a sheet of voluptuous pasta. This fish cookery is consistently brilliant, the sum of its parts nothing less than gorgeous.

The lobster is an optional course. And what a course it is. Lee brings it in just before cooking- it’s Cornish of course, as are the summer vegetables from his friend’s greenhouse, both delivered for tonight- and minutes later is on the table.

Those tiny crisp scoops of apple and courgette with sweet peas are expertly textured: you can imagine this dish working beautifully with the usual hake, but when this lobster arrives less ‘cooked’ and more coaxed onto your plate, you can’t help feeling smug that you added it to the list. The airy white wine and butter sauce brings to mind the hackneyed bathed but it really is the right word here, a sense of comfort and opulence obvious in each bite. ‘Optional’ maybe. When you go, though? You’ll want to make sure you try this: it’s one of my dishes of 2020.

If all this is working, you’re getting some sense by now of just how impressive these dishes are.

The last savoury course combines two cuts of lamb: a slow-roasted, crisp-skinned piece of belly hiding under a welter of spinach and clams, which pulls apart in thick strands; and rack, each chop blushing like a vicar told a dirty joke at Sunday lunch (like that one about the the dinner lady, the dachshund and the jar of gherkins). The meat cookery is impeccable: it’ll put you in mind of laverbread and with that savoury, salty tangle of clams and spinach, it’s another remarkable dish.

Desserts impress: whether it’s the gel-like lemon curd dome and the refreshing blend of acidic and creamy- oranges and the frozen yoghurt parfait- or the simplicity of a cookie dough-style shell, frozen but served just as it thaws, filled with berries and cream.

The flakiest of millefeuilles rustles like autumn leaves, layers glossily interleaved with caramel. How do you explain something made of pastry, cream and sugar so improbably light that you feel compelled to wolf it down before it floats up off your dish? I don’t know, but I know a man who can.

It’s an odd time to be writing about and recommending restaurants (and that’s all I’m doing at the moment: no one needs a dissuader when businesses teeter over the chasm). I’m always very conscious of those who read this while in reduced circumstances, or in fear of their livelihoods, while still wanting to support businesses. If you can afford the outlay, you’ll be well rewarded here. I came in search of something special: something sumptuous, something sexy. I found it, with room to spare. Right now it’s particularly appropriate- it’s intimate, it avoids crowds, it’s particularly lovely.

How good is it in context, though? Well, as things stand today, few- and it’s not even close to a handful- meals in this city right now will send you away as happy and as impressed. Yes, that’s a bold claim. And yes, it really is that good. Bones Supperclub should go on your ‘essential’ list, and I urge you to try it for yourself. Top Three kind of good. Go with someone special.

Lee has just extended his availability nightly Mon to Fri- details for the Bones Supperclub are below.